Miracle! Unspent Boondoggle Money Is Returned to the Treasury!

This does not happen often. Abut $500 million in unspent funds was returned to the U.S. Treasury.

The reason why all of the authorized money is usually spend is because the bureaucrats know that the budget will be cut next year if all of the money is not spent this year.

The money was half of a $1 billion boondoggle to help 30,000 home owners in 32 states pay their mortgages. As to why these home owners were to be helped and not millions of others was never made clear.

In five states — Utah, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri and North Dakota— less than 10% of the expected number of homeowners received preliminary approvals. North Dakota’s allocation allowed for 43 borrowers to get help; just four got preliminary approvals.

New York state has 458 preliminary approvals — 17% of its maximum allocation for 2,633 loans. Its total will likely go up because a data transmission problem delayed some applications there, Sullivan says.

The program was too small to do anything to solve the housing crisis, assuming that spending government money can solve problems. The program was just one more way to feed government employees who administer programs.

The deficit stays high because the number of boondoggles stays high. “Free money” has plenty of takers. Somehow, not all of the takers took this money.

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4 thoughts on “Miracle! Unspent Boondoggle Money Is Returned to the Treasury!”

A "drop in the bucket" in today's budgeting world, eh?…
But, still, a welcome breath of fresh air after all those "grow the budget" acts/actions of 2006-2010…
Today's "base line" figures are still slewed higher, by nearly 30% overall, from what they should have/would have been!

We could save tons of our TAXPAYER DOLLARS, if we would only adopt a "zero balance" budget starting point each cycle!
Make these "departments" and "agencies" JUSTIFY in PUBLIC every cent they are asking for, from us citizens…
Priorities could then be set from the view point of simple application of "common sense", eh?.

Most simple cuts would be to DEFUND by 50% or more: TSA/EPA/IRS/DOJ/HSA/HHR/DOE, etc…. Get-er-Done!

While in the military, toward the end of the fiscal year, we were told to conserve resources. Then at the very last minute we were told to spend, spend, spend, on trivial stuff that was not really needed. Fiscal responsibility? Not really!!

The money retured will probably be lost in the system and never be found. How do you all think OBUMMER plans to get re-elected.
Do the math, $500 million at $100.00 per vote equals a crap load of stuffed ballot boxes, and don't think he won't do it because he will.

You should see the WASTE at the VA hospitals at the end of the year. Spend it or lose it. Times that by all the VA,s. Every government agency has the "Year End Dump" in which they expend the rest of their budget. NEW items are discarded so new ones can be purchased.